Germany to send additional Patriot system to Ukraine

April 14, 2024
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN Topics

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Germany to send additional Patriot system to Ukraine

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Defence

Context:

Germany will provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense system to bolster its defences against increasing Russian airstrikes.

Details:

This decision reflects ongoing efforts to strengthen Ukrainian air defence capabilities, which have previously included deliveries of the US-made Patriot systems designed to counteract Russian drone and cruise missile attacks.
The US has committed to selling Ukraine equipment worth up to $138 million to maintain and upgrade its HAWK air defence systems, following the previous deployment of HAWK interceptor missiles as an enhancement over the smaller, shorter-range Stinger systems.

Patriot Air Defence System:

The Patriot (MIM-104), which stands for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is the U.S. Army’s most advanced air defense system.
It is an all-weather surface-to-air missile defence system to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and advanced aircraft.
It was developed by Raytheon, an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate.
The system was first used in combat during the 1991 Gulf War, with batteries protecting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel, and was later used during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It is in service with the US and allied countries, including Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Poland, Sweden, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Spain, and Taiwan.
Features:
- It is a mobile system that usually includes powerful radar, a control station, a power generator, launch stations, and other support vehicles.
- Depending on the version in use, the interceptor missiles can reach an altitude of more than 24 kilometres and hit targets up to 160 kilometres away.
- Its radar can track up to 50 targets and engage five of them at once.
- It is equipped with a track-via-missile (TVM) guidance system. Midcourse correction commands are transmitted to the guidance system from the mobile engagement control centre.
- A Patriot battery can need as many as 90 troops to operate and maintain it.

Other Air Defence Systems in the news:

Air Defence Systems	Description
1. HAWK Air defence	HAWK, short for ‘Homing All the Way Killer’, It entered service with the US Army in 1959, during the Vietnam war. It is an American medium-range surface-to-air missile. It underwent upgrades over the decades that followed, including a major one in 1971 that produced the so-called I-HAWK (or improved HAWK), with a kill probability of 85%. The HAWK system was the predecessor to the PATRIOT missile defence system that Raytheon built in the 1990s. US forces largely stopped using HAWK from the early years of the new century.
2. Very Short-Range Air Defence System (VSHORADS)	VSHORADS is a Man Portable Air Defence System (MANPAD) designed and developed indigenously by DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Hyderabad in collaboration with other DRDO laboratories and Indian Industry Partners. VSHORADS missile incorporates many novel technologies including miniaturized Reaction Control System (RCS) and integrated avionics, which have been successfully proven during the tests. The missile, meant for neutralizing low-altitude aerial threats at short ranges, is propelled by a dual thrust solid motor. The design of the missile including launcher has been highly optimized to ensure easy portability.
3. HQ-9 (Hong Qi 9)	Developed by: China It has a 200 km radar detection range with active radar-homing missiles and cold launch capability but a shorter detection range and fewer missile types compared to the S-400.
4. Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System (THAAD)	Developed by: USA It has a 200 km radar detection range optimised to intercept intermediate-range missiles in the endo-atmospheric region but has a shorter detection range than the S-400 and limited targets, like missiles only.
5. S-300PMU	Developed by: Russia It has a 200 km radar detection range capable of tracking 300 targets simultaneously with multiple missile options but a shorter detection range than the S-400 as it is an older predecessor system.
6. S- 400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler)	Developed by- Russia A long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, to counter advances in Western air defence systems like the MIM-104 Patriot. It was intended to replace the earlier S-200 and S-300 systems developed in the 1960s-1970s.
7. Iron Dome System	Developed by- Israel It was first deployed in 2011. The Iron Dome has three main systems that work together to provide a shield over the area where it is deployed, handling multiple threats. It has a detection and tracking radar to spot any incoming threats, a battle management and weapon control system (BMC), and a missile firing unit. It is capable of being used in all weather conditions, including during the day and night.
8. Arrow-3 Missile Defence System	The missile was jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and the Missile Defence Agency in the US. It is an exo-atmospheric anti-ballistic missile defence system for long-range threat engagement. Initially deployed in 2017, Arrow-3 is the top layer of Israel’s sophisticated air defence network. It is designed to take out ballistic missiles while they are still outside of the atmosphere.